


Fire and Stone (working title)

by StoriesFromDust



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 18:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoriesFromDust/pseuds/StoriesFromDust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a complete Work In Progress, and will undergo much revision.</p><p>A witch wakes up burned in a pit of the dead and stumbles to safety, fighting for her life. She is left voiceless and caring for her friend, overcome with evil hallucinations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pit

From the bottom of a pit of corpses Essie stared blankly at her sisters. She had screamed until the hot coals burned away her voice, and struggled until it was beaten out of her on the trip to the pit, now she feigned death. The men had long since left her in the darkness, but she was not yet ready to live again. Death was simple, but to live she would have to move herself, re-open the scabs that were beginning to form, find an internal strength. To lay in the pit she only needed to do nothing. When she thought about this day coming she had never once considered how badly she would want to stop living. If only she hadn't been so practical, if only salvation wasn't just over the ridge of the Witch Pit, she could just die.

But her body was foolish, and her hands began to move without her permission. She pulled herself forward, over the bodies of her sisters, the smarter girls who had known their place. Eternally at rest, finally in a place she belonged. Her hands pushed and pulled and tugged at the dirt walls until she reached the edge. Her legs betrayed her as well and pushed her up over the ridge of the pit. She was out for good. Even the part of her that wanted to die would never willingly go back in there.

Her salvation was a few feet away, Doe Tear, a healing herb that Essie has planted here years ago to help any of her Fire Sisters that managed to make it out. She used to wonder why none of them crawled out. Feigning death was a simple spell that didn't need a spoken counter, and the Doe Tear was an easily recognizable plant, even for the inexperienced witch. She chewed and swallowed. The hot coal that had been forced in her mouth was gone, swallowed perhaps? A second batch of chewed herb was applied between her legs, voice and womb had been burned away so she could not pay honor to satan or bear his children. The rest of her had been scalded and whipped, but that was not part of the ceremony. The Clergy was only concerned that she not be able to spread evil.

The night passed with Essie at the side of the pit, daring someone to return and finish the job.

When the dawn broke Essie began to feel pain once again. A horrible ghost fire covered her body, punishing her again and again with every movement. In agonizing flames Essie gathered all of the Doe Tear, without a thought to anyone who might be brought to the pit today. Clutching the cool plant in desperation Essie stumbled onward. She had walked this forest hundreds of times before, careful to never leave a trail. This time she left black marks and blood streaks carelessly as she went. It was slow. Essie stopped every few feet to re-apply the medicine, or just lay down and have pain wash over her. The boulder was not even an hours walk into the forest, yet Essie did not catch sight of it until the sun was low in the sky.

It was a huge solid granite mass, with the eastern side vaguely flat. Essie's fingers pressed onto her charred body sending out fresh sharp curses of pain, and she brought her fingers to the stone, cool and smooth. She began to draw an arch. This seemed more like a satanic ritual than anything she had ever done before, inflicting firey pain to herself and etching it upon the stone again and again. She would want to kill anyone who regularly practiced this this kind of a spell, if only to put them out of their misery.

Essie finished the archway in soot and the dwarven symbol for home, the soot faded into the boulder and carved out a small door that Essie could hunch through. The inside would have been cozy for a dwarf, but was cramped for Essie. Dwarf Cottages were minimalistic in nature. A circular window in the small door let in enough light to see the single room. To the right was a basin filled with water. Opposite the door was a small statue, honoring the dwarven god who oversaw the stone that the boulder was composed of. Granite was a common god, who oversaw the virtues of honor and stability, though what dwarf god didn't? A few shelves lined the ever curving walls, Essie had previously stocked them with bottles of Doe Tear essence, Fire Syrup, Whiskey, Tiger's Eye Tintcures and Queen's Root. The basin had fresh water, and strips of cotton had been laid out in neat piles on the floor.  She had left her tools here weeks ago and felt relief when she saw them undisturbed on the shelf to the left.

There was a granite slab for sleeping with a wool blanket crumpled on top. Wren was already here, gone to the world, motionless and lost in a tea dream. Her skin was fair and unmarred except for the occasional freckle. She was small, thin, and delicate. Essie collapsed by her side in a small burst of charcoal.


	2. Tea Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wren is hallucinating.

This night was worse than the others. From deep within Wren's core a gaping darkness ate away. There were noises all around her and a terrible burning in her lungs. Wren pulled at her hair. Exile. Frozen solid. Clawing pain. Wren could not stop it, so she screamed. It gave her power to subdue the biting fire.

A woman leaking blood leaned over her. She was covered in damp pink bandages. Wren screamed at her. She shrieked. She clawed. She punched the stone walls and then herself. Again and again, pain she could control was a desperate relief. Tears came fresh again.

The woman moved so slowly. Her hands were moving towards Wren. Wren howled as loud as she could. She burned everywhere. Her voice gave out, but she continued in breathless mockery of herself. Fist to her temple, pulling her hair. Anything at all.

The woman's hand extended with a cup slowly. Wren gave up. She didn't want to love anymore. She was stuck here forever. All hope was lost. Why did she ever think she deserved anything else?

The woman was handing her water. By the time the slow woman had extended her hand Wren had given up to quiet sobs. The woman slowly, gently, put the cup to Wren’s lips. It was cool. Her throat no longer burned. But she was so empty. She had nothing anymore. She had been cast out.

The woman was saying something but it was so slow, Wren tried to hear her, but it was hopeless. It didn't matter anyway. Everything was lost. Wren curled up and away from the woman. She could still see the figures at the edge of her vision, there was no point in trying to look at them anymore, they were too fast.

Darkness fell around her, she was a thin skin in between two pressing blacknesses. Her body pushed and bent like clay between a potter's hands. Reduced only to skin she spread out around the cottage. Which black mass was outside and which was in? She felt her fingers expand to the width of her head and her arms shrink to thread.

Her skin snapped open, and suddenly she was breaking open everywhere, tiny holes throughout her body were expanding like worms were tunneling through her. The blackness leaked out and poured in. She was a single point.

The world spun and wren was surrounded by dim cottage light, her mouth was full of vomit and it was leaking down her chest. The woman was behind her, she had pulled her up. Wren coughed and threw up again, in her lap this time.

Her blanket was gone now and Wren shivered on the stone slab. Her bones were scraping against one another, she could feel them grinding down to dust inside her. The blackness was still inside and whenever Wren thought about it she could feel those holes opening up in her skin. The woman came back with hot water.

“Please take me home. Please take me home, please take me home. I don't belong here take me home take me HOME HOME HOME.” Wren reduced to tears again. She would grind away to nothing. She was nothing. What was happening? She had been everything and here she was, trapped in a single body, full of holes, moving so slowly through time.

Wren awoke wrapped in a blanket, warm and touched by fire, but had never been more cold.


	3. Seeing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wren Wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am writing things linearly right now, but I expect to come back and do a little origin story interspersed with these chapters that will give context and clarity to what is going on.

Essie woke in dark silence suddenly. She was laying on the cool granite floor while Wren lay on the bed. Something seemed off for a moment, until Essie realized that she was in complete silence. No shivering, no weeping. Essie fumbled for a candle and plucked a group of red hair from her scalp, it was almost an inch long again. She pinched the hair to the candle wick and a weak flame emerged, it took a moment to fully catch.

With the room illuminated Essie could see that Wren was conscious, and seemed to be able to focus her vision. She was staring at Essie. Essie Smiled at the girl and showed both of her palms, hoping that she didn't look too menacing with her black teeth and bandaged limbs. The girl showed her hands in return. Essie lit a second candle and handed it to the girl, she knew that there was something comforting about warm fire. The girl took it gingerly.

"Thank you." the girl said in a sweet soft voice. Essie felt a terrible pang of jealousy. "For everything." Essie bowed her head once and smiled. "Do you speak?" The girl asked. Essie shook her head no. The girl covered her mouth briefly as if ashamed, and then whispered "May I speak?" Essie Nodded to the girl. "My name is Wren.”

Essie showed the palm of her right hand and reached toward Wren, when she nodded Essie pulled forward a few strands of her hair and raised her eyebrows. Wren looked at it like she had seen it for the first time. Wren closed her eyes, "How did I get here?” She did not wait for Essie's reply. “There was a pebble and a tall man stepped on me until I was small enough to get inside, and then Satan came into my prison and blew fire all over me. and then I was tiny, and frail, and hungry for the first time ever, and these men came back over and over and hurt me everywhere, only when I looked at them they vanished. I could only see them with the whites of my eyes. Then I saw a child who ate the night and she scared them away. And then the windows flashed with lightning, and then there was darkness." Wren stopped for a moment "and I called out in the darkness and you created fire for me. Is there food?"

Essie pulled a piece of cloth off of a bowl of root mash that she didn't have the stomach to eat. Wren devoured it as quickly as her body would allow. With her mouth still full she continued "And then you were silent and I spoke with my own voice and it echoed through this room and back at me. And then..." Wren stopped, she frowned. Essie looked at her, confused. "You look at me like that and then...." Wren put her hand over her ears and closed her eyes. "Next, next, next, What's Next?..." she looked at Essie, lost, alone. Essie pulled her into a strong hug and Wren sobbed herself back to sleep.


End file.
